Contentions

Rabbi Victor Urecki — one of the 15 rabbis who met with Rahm Emanuel and Dennis Ross at the White House last month — gave a lengthy talk on June 3 to his congregation about the meetings. The transcript is posted on his Facebook page, which describes him as a “liberal Democrat.” His talk answers a question that Rabbi Jack Moline’s description of the meetings (previously discussed by Jen and me) left hanging: after the rabbis suggested that Obama travel to Israel and speak directly to Israelis, what was the response?

Urecki described the issue the rabbis presented as follows (I have omitted his extended baseball metaphor about needing the key player to bat):

I, and others, raised the issue that the President himself needs to be more fully engaged and show both Israelis and members of the pro-Israel community that he gets it, that we need to see a President that shows, like previous Presidents, that Israel is a friend. This outreach to us is good, but things won’t change until the President does the outreach and we are not seeing that vis-à-vis Israel. He needs to talk directly to the Israelis. … [He] needs to visit Jerusalem and do what he did in Cairo in ’09, namely reach out to Israelis who have serious concerns about him and show he understands their fears.

Here in unabridged form is Urecki’s description of the response the rabbis received:

The answer I and others got was the President will find his opportunities to make his feelings known in time. And that was it.